I agree we always seem to guage a "recession" by 2 negative GDP quarters however (I will play devils advocate on this...by NO means giving the WH a pass)
See below...where some may struggle is "decline in employment"....I know Cobalt and I have said this for a while on the board...IF this is a recession it may be the first I have EVER seen where you can quit your job today and go get another one tomorrow LOL.
That said I agree 2 quarters of negative GDP is what I have always looked at...
This is the strangest recession I have ever seen....in fact the ONLY reason we are probabaly in a recession is because the Fed created it LOL...IF they of course continued to ignore inflation and didnt raise rates this year we would still be booming...albiet with even higher inflation...
This is why nowadays when people say history repeats I take a pause to first question that logic.
Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/recession recession
economics
recession, in economics, a downward trend in the business cycle characterized by a decline in production and employment, which in turn causes the incomes and spending of households to decline. Even though not all households and businesses experience actual declines in income, their expectations about the future become less certain during a recession and cause them to delay making large purchases or investments.
In recessions, the decline in output can be traced to a reduction in purchases of durable household goods by consumers and of machinery and equipment by businesses, and a reduction in additions of goods to stocks or inventories. The greatest effect is probably on inventory; businesses stop adding to their inventories and become more willing to draw on them to fill production orders. Inventory declines thus have a double impact on production volume